Canadian (born in Russia), 1812–1901

Autumn Landscape, 1865

oil on canvas

Categories:

Born in what is today part of Russia, Jacobi came to Canada from Berlin in 1860 and quickly established himself as a landscape painter. He was elected President of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1890. Jacobi was impressed with the raw qualities of the uninhabited Canadian landscape, and the majority of his paintings reflect idealized images of nature’s unleashed power through waterfalls and river rapids. This work, likely depicting the Gatineau hills in Quebec, may have been painted from a photograph as it exhibits detailed clarity in the centre with blurring at the edges, typical characteristics of nineteenth-century photographs.